On the first of February, 2010, Dr. John A. Shanahan sent a letter regarding the future of American energy policy to Dr. John P. Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy and President Obama's Science Advisor. Attached to the letter were more than thirty pages of signatories—309 scientists, engineers and citizens from 22 countries and 36 US states. The purpose of the letter was to ask for a clarification of the Obama administration's stand on nuclear energy policy. Dr. Shanahan's conclusion: if anyone thinks that the current administration's nuclear policy solves America's energy problems, they have no idea what they are talking about.

The entire world in engaged in efforts to build a secure and ecologically sound energy future, yet the US government continues to dither over energy policy. With the exception of grandstanding sound bite events, like the announcement by President Obama that the Federal Government would offer secure loans to build the first new American nuclear power plant in the nearly four decades, nothing has been done to secure the future or craft a coherent US energy policy.

John Shanahan, a Denver-based civil engineer who has worked on numerous nuclear power plant projects, wrote a letter to President Obama's Science Advisor John Holdren about the administration’s support for nuclear energy. Shanahan met Holdren in California, forty years ago, and they had kept in touch since then. Frustrated with America's lack of progress on the energy front, John contacted a number of his nuclear friends, and they drew up a letter to the President's Science Advisor. This is how the letter starts: